Re: Engine of forum
On Saturday, September 1, 2018 5:46:55 PM MDT Walter Bright via Digitalmars- d wrote: > On 9/1/2018 3:58 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote: > > On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote: > >> I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering > >> questions.> > > I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the > > annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful > > of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types > > step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway > > (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if > > I happen to see it in time) > > Sometimes I get caught up in Reddit/Hackernews karma. Then, I remember > that it's absurdly meaningless. Maybe if Reddit/Hackernews would let me > exchange karma for a tote bag or t-shirt :-) In theory, SO reputation is more meaningful in that in principle, it indicates that other programmers think that you know what you're talking about. And actually, the fact that I'd answered a bunch of questions on SO and had a high reputation helped me get a job at one point, because it was an online resource where the folks interviewing me could actually see that I knew what I was talking about before they even talked to me. Reputation on SO does need to be taken with a grain of salt, but when someone has 10K+ reputation from answering questions, and you can see what they've posted, it does say something about what they know and not just that folks thought that they said a bunch of funny or insightful things. Overall, I don't think that SO is a great platform (and while I've answered a bunch of questions, I've asked relatively few there), but it does provide the answers to many people's questions, and as someone who answers questions, it provides a way to show others that you actually know how to program - especially when that's then added to other stuff that you have online like your github history. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, August 21, 2018 1:25:14 PM MDT Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On 8/21/2018 7:18 AM, Seb wrote: > >> some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki > > > > There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's > > actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow > > never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for > > StackOverflow. > My reservation about stackoverflow is it could go dark at any moment, and > we'd lose it all. Having critical business data dependent on any third > party that has zero commitment or accountability to us is very risky. > > With the NNTP, git, and bugzilla, we all have backups under our control. In addition to that, SO and D.Learn are fundamentally different ways to communicate with their own pros and cons. And both are used. People ask D questions in both places, and I don't see any reason to try and get rid of one in favor of the other. Shutting down D.Learn would essentially be saying that we don't want to help people learning D (even if we're then willing to help them on SO), and it would result in an increase in questions in the main newsgroup about how to use D. We have enough problems with that already. I don't think that it makes any sense to even consider shutting down D.Learn regardless of what's going on with SO. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, August 21, 2018 8:40:32 AM MDT Steven Schveighoffer via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On the contrary, many of the regular contributors here, don't give a > lick about the forum software, as long as it's primarily backed by the > newsgroup server. Many, including myself use the NG server, many others > use the mailing list interface. If the NG was ditched, I would have a > big problem communicating, as I hate dealing with web forums. I use the mailing list interface and have since well before the current forum interface was added. I have years worth of history available offline, and I can easily keep track of what I have and haven't read, even if I access it from separate machines (which is actually why I use the mailing list rather than the newsgroup - the newsgroup software that I used previously had no way to sync which messages were read between machines). I do use web forums for other communities, but I _much_ prefer being able to use my e-mail client to using a web interface. And plenty of other programming communities use mailing lists rather than web forums. The only real downside I see to mailing lists is that they're more of a pain if you just want to look at the content occasionally rather than actually being involved. So, they definitely favor people who follow them actively over folks who are very casual about it. But our system has the advantage of giving folks three different interfaces to the same content. So, you can choose whichever you prefer. The only major downside I see to the current setup is folks who don't understand that the "forum" is just one of several interfaces to a newsgroup, and they come in here and complain that the forum software doesn't have some feature or other that they want. Maybe some of those features would be nice, but they generally do not go well with either a newsgroup or mailing list (which a large percentage of the major contributors use), and in my experience, the features you get from a newsgroup or mailing list are more than adequate for the kind of communication that goes on here. I would be _very_ unhappy if we ever switched to something else like discourse or if the forum software got features that resulted in folks there posting a bunch of markup or the like instead of plain text, since that would be bad for the mailing list and newsgroup users. Fortunately, since Walter is a newsgroup user and definitely seems to like the current setup, it's unlikely that it's going to be screwed up any time soon. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Engine of forum
On 09/01/2018 07:46 PM, Walter Bright wrote: On 9/1/2018 3:58 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote: On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote: I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions. I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time) That's good to hear. Although, can't help fearing how the environment there might chance if it did become the new official D.learn. Sometimes I get caught up in Reddit/Hackernews karma. Then, I remember that it's absurdly meaningless. Maybe if Reddit/Hackernews would let me exchange karma for a tote bag or t-shirt :-) Nah, man, go to Dave & Busters or Round One for your trinkets. Skee-Ball beats internet debates any day ;) (Come to think of it...why am I here and not there now? They have imports! Immmports)
Re: Engine of forum
On 9/1/2018 3:58 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote: On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote: I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions. I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time) Sometimes I get caught up in Reddit/Hackernews karma. Then, I remember that it's absurdly meaningless. Maybe if Reddit/Hackernews would let me exchange karma for a tote bag or t-shirt :-)
Re: Engine of forum
On Saturday, 1 September 2018 at 22:10:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote: I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions. I generally agree, but the D tag on it isn't so bad since most the annoying regulars keep away. It is more the domain of me and a handful of other regular D folks (though indeed, sometimes the annoying types step in to shut stuff down, I often will just answer it anyway (ab)using my 20,000 magic internet points to comment on closed stuff if I happen to see it in time)
Re: Engine of forum
On 08/22/2018 01:28 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote: On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:06:38PM +, Neia Neutuladh via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...] I'm a little paranoid about centralized services like Github. I'd prefer a federated service for source control / project management, where you could easily fork projects from my server to yours and send back pull requests. Then there would be no extra cost for hosting your own vs using an existing instance. My fingers are very tightly crossed, hoping, hoping, hoping for good things from Tim Berners-Lee's Solid: https://github.com/solid/solid (Introduction, docs and project repo.) https://solid.mit.edu/ (The obligatory zero-meaningful-information "manager's introduction", but worth having bookmarked anyway.) If we're lucky, maybe someday Solid will pan out enough to have a re-decentralized Github built on top. In fact, git itself was designed with such a decentralized usage pattern in mind. Ironically, people have rebuilt centralized platforms on top of it, and even to the point of building walled gardens like github. I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled garden /nod /nod Exactly how I always saw it. Another frustrating irony I noticed: Git was deliberately built from the ground up for performance. In fact, that was always one of its biggest selling points, esp. in comparison to other VCSes. But then GitHub, built specifically and exclusively around Git, has only in the last couple years or so become...uhh...*NOT* completely insanely absurdly slow. Still not "fast" or lean, mind you. Just not *horrifically* slow. It's as if GitHub was founded by people saying "Hey! Git is seriously awesome! In fact, Git is s freaking awesome that...'know what? 'know what we should do? We should build a service around Git that throws away ALL the things that make Git awesome! Isn't that a fantastic idea!!!" If I were a Silicon Valley VC, that'd get my money! I've been low-key thinking about making a federated github, one where exporting your data is as simple as a `git clone; git submodule update --init`. Probably nothing will come of it, though. A big "same here" to all parts of this ;)
Re: Engine of forum
On 08/21/2018 10:18 AM, Seb wrote: There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow. Eeew, god no. That would be HORRIBLE. I've used StackOverflow. It's NOT a place for asking and answering questions. It's a place where anybody who fancies themself a control freak can come play out their hall-monitor/web-moderator fantasies all while earning points toward nifty stickers(!!!) and leveling-up their self-righteousness stats to earn bigger and better tools for exerting control over others. I'm not even joking: StackOverflow might not have intended it, but it really IS more of a mixed-reality social MMO than a Q tool. I'm amazed that anyone who's tried it can still take it seriously. In D.learn: People post questions. Other people post answers. Done. In StackOverflow: Attempts to ask/answer regularly just get shame-slapped into oblivion by any one of the hundreds (thousands?) of members mostly just there to play the meta-game.
Re: Engine of forum
On 08/31/2018 03:28 PM, tide wrote: Don't use a NNTP client, I prefer to just use a browser. For many of us it's the opposite. If you prefer to use a browser then you're free to keep using it. So you've never posted a snippet of code on here? I honestly doubt that. Syntax formatting is useful even if you only post 2 lines of code. No wonder these boards are the way they are with opinions like that. Syntax highlighting of code snippets would be nice. You could bring it up at DFeed's issue tracker.
Re: Engine of forum
On 08/21/2018 05:41 PM, tide wrote: What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment? Then the world ends and everybody dies horribly. Erm...wait, I mean: You post a follow-up and move on. Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature? What for? To reinvent the wonders that non-plaintext email unleashed on the world? To add an extra tick in some marketing blurb? Fire and Motion: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ (Skip the first half. Do a text search for "Fire and Motion" and read from there on.)
Re: Engine of forum
On 08/20/2018 11:42 PM, Ali wrote: Every now and then someone new to D comes and ask, why arent we using better forum software. There *is* better forum software than what they're used to using. *MUCH* better. It's called Thunderbird. :)
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/31/2018 3:16 AM, Andrey wrote: Forum posts should be informative and contain meaningful text that will be understandable for readers. And if required, it should contain videos / images / screenshots / quotes / links, etc. It already highlights quotes and links. As for the rest, the D forum is not a free hosting service for pictures, videos, manuscripts, music, or project source code. There are free services for that (youtube, imgur, github, etc.) which you're welcome to link to from a post. Posts should be short, on topic and to the point. Quoting of the antecedent should be minimal. It is very strange to hear from programmer that "syntax formatting" is useless feature. It's not useful for snippets of code. Worse, often people want to write grammatically incorrect code for purposes of illustration, highlighting that would be a nuisance.
Re: Engine of forum
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature? It's a useless feature. Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum. Moreover, for those who really want to show their code: There are sites like run.dlang.io or dpaste.dzfl.pl. They don't just store one's code snippets for viewing them with syntax highlighting, they also come with the handy feature of allowing one to execute them directly via their webservice.
Re: Engine of forum
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad. Using years is about a pointless as using lines of code to evaluate a project. There's some sites that have received more throughput of users and their activity in one year than this site has seen in 20.
Re: Engine of forum
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote: What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment? That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from. Don't use a NNTP client, I prefer to just use a browser. Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature? It's a useless feature. Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum. Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate. Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad. So you've never posted a snippet of code on here? I honestly doubt that. Syntax formatting is useful even if you only post 2 lines of code. No wonder these boards are the way they are with opinions like that.
Re: Engine of forum
On Friday, 31 August 2018 at 10:37:05 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: On 31/08/2018 10:16 PM, Andrey wrote: Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group. Feel free to argue this for projects like the Linux kernel. If you succeed it is safe to say we will too. Some subsystems of the Linux kernel like DRM are migrating their development to GitLab. They'll still be using mailing lists as the primary communication channel, but perhaps using GitLab merge requests and issues is not far off either. Sometimes when the right incentives like easier infrastructure management and developer productivity are in place unthinkable things like that do happen. Only time will tell ;) https://about.gitlab.com/2018/08/20/freedesktop-org-migrates-to-gitlab/
Re: Engine of forum
On 31/08/2018 10:16 PM, Andrey wrote: Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group. Feel free to argue this for projects like the Linux kernel. If you succeed it is safe to say we will too.
Re: Engine of forum
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 01:43:54 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote: What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment? That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from. Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature? It's a useless feature. Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum. Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate. Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad. Forum posts should be informative and contain meaningful text that will be understandable for readers. And if required, it should contain videos / images / screenshots / quotes / links, etc. And should be written so that it is convenient to read - with formatting, highlighting, indentation... It is very strange to hear from programmer that "syntax formatting" is useless feature. Possibility to vote for message, append "thank you" and mark some message as an answer it also increases readability. Any self-respecting website related to programming or developing something, has in its composition a place where people can comfortably and freely discuss pressing issues. Not some weird news group.
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/21/2018 2:41 PM, tide wrote: What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment? That's really up to your NNTP client's design, which we didn't implement. There are lots of NNTP clients to choose from. Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature? It's a useless feature. Formatting is needed for longer form text, which is not really appropriate for the forum. Forum posts should be short and to the point - posting an article or manifesto should be posted separately, with a link to it in the forum. Also, there is no need to post pictures, emoji, banners, or other cruft one sees in other forums. Especially pictures, as those eat up server space and bandwith at a terrifying rate. Nearly 20 years of the D forum consumes 2,800,000 4K blocks, or somewhat over a gigabyte. Not bad.
Re: Engine of forum
On Wednesday, 22 August 2018 at 23:53:46 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote: On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:24:17PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote: On 8/22/2018 10:28 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote: > I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that > github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's > basically a walled garden -- there's no simple way I know of > to extract data like pull requests, comments, > cross-references, etc.. I mean, it's *possible* to write a > web crawler that does just that, but such functionality is > second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at > all is merely a happy accident, since github's very design > seems to be geared at drawing people to centralize > everything on github. It's not quite at the point of vendor > lock-in, but it's certainly uncomfortably close, in my view. As for github comments, they get echoed to me as emails. So I have an email archive of them. That's good to know. Still, an export function that will give you your data in some computer-parseable format would have been nice. T They have an API for taht, and it looks like people have made programs to create backups of it with the api. https://developer.github.com/v3/ https://hackage.haskell.org/package/github-backup
Re: Engine of forum
On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:24:17PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On 8/22/2018 10:28 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote: > > I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github > > provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled > > garden -- there's no simple way I know of to extract data like pull > > requests, comments, cross-references, etc.. I mean, it's *possible* > > to write a web crawler that does just that, but such functionality > > is second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at all is > > merely a happy accident, since github's very design seems to be > > geared at drawing people to centralize everything on github. It's > > not quite at the point of vendor lock-in, but it's certainly > > uncomfortably close, in my view. > > As for github comments, they get echoed to me as emails. So I have an > email archive of them. That's good to know. Still, an export function that will give you your data in some computer-parseable format would have been nice. T -- Why can't you just be a nonconformist like everyone else? -- YHL
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/22/2018 10:28 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote: I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled garden -- there's no simple way I know of to extract data like pull requests, comments, cross-references, etc.. I mean, it's *possible* to write a web crawler that does just that, but such functionality is second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at all is merely a happy accident, since github's very design seems to be geared at drawing people to centralize everything on github. It's not quite at the point of vendor lock-in, but it's certainly uncomfortably close, in my view. As for github comments, they get echoed to me as emails. So I have an email archive of them.
Re: Engine of forum
On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 04:06:38PM +, Neia Neutuladh via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...] > I'm a little paranoid about centralized services like Github. I'd > prefer a federated service for source control / project management, > where you could easily fork projects from my server to yours and send > back pull requests. Then there would be no extra cost for hosting > your own vs using an existing instance. In fact, git itself was designed with such a decentralized usage pattern in mind. Ironically, people have rebuilt centralized platforms on top of it, and even to the point of building walled gardens like github. I don't argue against the usefulness of the features that github provides, but I'm also wary of the fact that it's basically a walled garden -- there's no simple way I know of to extract data like pull requests, comments, cross-references, etc.. I mean, it's *possible* to write a web crawler that does just that, but such functionality is second-class, and one might argue, that it is possible at all is merely a happy accident, since github's very design seems to be geared at drawing people to centralize everything on github. It's not quite at the point of vendor lock-in, but it's certainly uncomfortably close, in my view. > I've been low-key thinking about making a federated github, one where > exporting your data is as simple as a `git clone; git submodule update > --init`. Probably nothing will come of it, though. That would be more in line with the decentralized design of git. I would welcome such a platform, if it ever materializes. T -- People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird. -- D. Knuth
Re: Engine of forum
On Wednesday, 22 August 2018 at 15:17:36 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote: It is weird that you make loosing current and historical pull requests is minor It would be disruptive. However, work could resume rather quickly. The disruption would be reduced if we had a periodic job set up to mirror github pull requests. There is at least one export tool, but it seems to get only the titles and not the comments or patches. compared to: * Having all the data readily available for search engines to have archived (today, not tomorrow). * Having an established forum/newsgroup readily available to handle the load of new questions. I just don't see data retention and recovery for StackOverflow to be a concern for making such a choice. Even if it did take weeks or months to host the historical data, risk should be weighed against possible benefit from visibility and growth from heavily using StackOverflow. And similarly, the choice of Github instead of a self-hosted system is weighed against requiring people to sign up with a private gitlab instance. Also similarly, the disruption would be reduced if we had a periodic job set up to handle long-term stackoverflow unavailability in advance. I'm a little paranoid about centralized services like Github. I'd prefer a federated service for source control / project management, where you could easily fork projects from my server to yours and send back pull requests. Then there would be no extra cost for hosting your own vs using an existing instance. I've been low-key thinking about making a federated github, one where exporting your data is as simple as a `git clone; git submodule update --init`. Probably nothing will come of it, though.
Re: Engine of forum
On Wednesday, 22 August 2018 at 05:05:48 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote: The dlang bugzilla and forum are both hosted on dlang-specific servers. If they go down, it's easy to get a replica and get back up and running in a few hours. Same with the wiki. If github went down or banned the dlang org, we'd lose in-progress pull requests and the history of pull request comments. Aside from that, we would be up and running on gitlab or what have you in hours. If Stack Overflow went down, we'd have to find an alternative, and then we'd have to figure out how to import that data. That could take weeks. And it will happen eventually. It is weird that you make loosing current and historical pull requests is minor compared to: * Having all the data readily available for search engines to have archived (today, not tomorrow). * Having an established forum/newsgroup readily available to handle the load of new questions. I just don't see data retention and recovery for StackOverflow to be a concern for making such a choice. Even if it did take weeks or months to host the historical data, risk should be weighed against possible benefit from visibility and growth from heavily using StackOverflow.
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 22:00:31 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 19:25:14 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: With the NNTP, git, and bugzilla, we all have backups under our control. I just don't see why it is a concern[1]: "So we set out to look for a new home for our data dumps, and today we’re happy to announce that the Internet Archive has agreed to host them: The Stack Exchange Data Dump at the Internet Archive[2]" 1. : https://stackoverflow.blog/2014/01/23/stack-exchange-cc-data-now-hosted-by-the-internet-archive/ 2. https://archive.org/details/stackexchange The dlang bugzilla and forum are both hosted on dlang-specific servers. If they go down, it's easy to get a replica and get back up and running in a few hours. Same with the wiki. If github went down or banned the dlang org, we'd lose in-progress pull requests and the history of pull request comments. Aside from that, we would be up and running on gitlab or what have you in hours. If Stack Overflow went down, we'd have to find an alternative, and then we'd have to figure out how to import that data. That could take weeks. And it will happen eventually.
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 19:25:14 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: With the NNTP, git, and bugzilla, we all have backups under our control. I just don't see why it is a concern[1]: "So we set out to look for a new home for our data dumps, and today we’re happy to announce that the Internet Archive has agreed to host them: The Stack Exchange Data Dump at the Internet Archive[2]" 1. : https://stackoverflow.blog/2014/01/23/stack-exchange-cc-data-now-hosted-by-the-internet-archive/ 2. https://archive.org/details/stackexchange
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 21:33:13 UTC, Patrick Schluter wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 06:53:18 UTC, Daniel N wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 03:42:21 UTC, Ali wrote: Many of those new comers who ask about the forum software .. they never stick, they dont complain, or question, or try to change for the better, they simply leave I think this is the best forum I have ever used, it's a big contributing factor to that I post here! I don't post every month praising the forum, I'm silently happy. But if we changed I would likely complain every month. Second that. The 2 big things this forum frontend has, is forcing to snip quotes (go look on realworldtech to see whole threads of quote galore of 400 lines where the answer is just one word) and speed. The thing that comments cannot be edited is also an advantage. This forces to put a little be more thought in them. What about if you accidentially press a button that posts the comment? Why can't syntax formatting be implemented, does anyone disagree that is a useless feature?
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 06:53:18 UTC, Daniel N wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 03:42:21 UTC, Ali wrote: Many of those new comers who ask about the forum software .. they never stick, they dont complain, or question, or try to change for the better, they simply leave I think this is the best forum I have ever used, it's a big contributing factor to that I post here! I don't post every month praising the forum, I'm silently happy. But if we changed I would likely complain every month. Second that. The 2 big things this forum frontend has, is forcing to snip quotes (go look on realworldtech to see whole threads of quote galore of 400 lines where the answer is just one word) and speed. The thing that comments cannot be edited is also an advantage. This forces to put a little be more thought in them.
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/21/2018 7:18 AM, Seb wrote: some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow. My reservation about stackoverflow is it could go dark at any moment, and we'd lose it all. Having critical business data dependent on any third party that has zero commitment or accountability to us is very risky. With the NNTP, git, and bugzilla, we all have backups under our control.
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/21/18 10:08 AM, Ali wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 05:30:07 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: Ask 10 people, and you'll get 10 different answers on what a better forum would be. Actually I think we can get 8 out of those 10 to agree, rust, ocaml, fsharp, nim, scala, clojure .. all use https://www.discourse.org/ I think this software is nowadays regarded and the best Cool! Does it support an interface on top of a newsgroup server? Priority #1 in these parts. If people leave because of the forum software, changing it won't change that. I also agree with that, most people who leave probably leave for more objective reasons, like that the language doesn't answer their needs, or they didnt find the libraries they needed within the ecosystem etc... But what I really meant, is that out of those who leaves, there is possible a very small percentage who left, because they couldnt communicate effectively with the community, and that better communication channels in general ( and a better forum software as an example) could have kept them around for longer , replacing the forum software is a small change, a small win, and I expect small returns. But a small win, is a win On the contrary, many of the regular contributors here, don't give a lick about the forum software, as long as it's primarily backed by the newsgroup server. Many, including myself use the NG server, many others use the mailing list interface. If the NG was ditched, I would have a big problem communicating, as I hate dealing with web forums. The forum software probably could be better in terms of formatting code (see for example vibe.d's forums which are ALSO NG backed and have code formatting features). Other than that, editing posts just doesn't make sense in terms of a mailing list or newsgroup. And it also doesn't make sense in terms of a discussion where things you thought you read mysteriously change. -Steve
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 14:18:40 UTC, Seb wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 03:42:21 UTC, Ali wrote: On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: [...] What are the specific problems solved by using better software? Well, most software projects, have different channels of communications, some use forums, some use newsgroups, some use irc, some use slack, Yep, D also has an active IRC channel (#d) and Slack group (https://forum.dlang.org/post/gidqeijjswgnpveog...@forum.dlang.org). some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow. That would increase the visibility of D as well!
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 14:08:01 UTC, Ali wrote: [...] But what I really meant, is that out of those who leaves, there is possible a very small percentage who left, because they couldnt communicate effectively with the community, Are you serious? This forum software is the most effektive I know. It is also efficient, especially for reading messages. and that better communication channels in general ( and a better forum software as an example) could have kept them around for longer, To what advantage? replacing the forum software is a small change, Arguably... a small win, and I expect small returns. But a small win, is a win It’s not a win in everybody’s minds ;-) I’m not saying that the forum cannot be improved, but to scrap it would be a loss if you ask me.
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 03:42:21 UTC, Ali wrote: On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum? What are the specific problems solved by using better software? Well, most software projects, have different channels of communications, some use forums, some use newsgroups, some use irc, some use slack, Yep, D also has an active IRC channel (#d) and Slack group (https://forum.dlang.org/post/gidqeijjswgnpveog...@forum.dlang.org). some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki There are a few good points to move D.learn to Stack Overflow and that's actually one thing that we have talked about a few times and somehow never has happened. In the D survey there was a 2:1 "consensus" for StackOverflow.
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 05:30:07 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: Ask 10 people, and you'll get 10 different answers on what a better forum would be. Actually I think we can get 8 out of those 10 to agree, rust, ocaml, fsharp, nim, scala, clojure .. all use https://www.discourse.org/ I think this software is nowadays regarded and the best If people leave because of the forum software, changing it won't change that. I also agree with that, most people who leave probably leave for more objective reasons, like that the language doesn't answer their needs, or they didnt find the libraries they needed within the ecosystem etc... But what I really meant, is that out of those who leaves, there is possible a very small percentage who left, because they couldnt communicate effectively with the community, and that better communication channels in general ( and a better forum software as an example) could have kept them around for longer , replacing the forum software is a small change, a small win, and I expect small returns. But a small win, is a win
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 03:42:21 UTC, Ali wrote: Many of those new comers who ask about the forum software .. they never stick, they dont complain, or question, or try to change for the better, they simply leave I think this is the best forum I have ever used, it's a big contributing factor to that I post here! I don't post every month praising the forum, I'm silently happy. But if we changed I would likely complain every month.
Re: Engine of forum
On 8/20/2018 8:42 PM, Ali wrote: Many of those new comers who ask about the forum software .. they never stick, they dont complain, or question, or try to change for the better, they simply leave Ask 10 people, and you'll get 10 different answers on what a better forum would be. If people leave because of the forum software, changing it won't change that.
Re: Engine of forum
On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum? What are the specific problems solved by using better software? Well, most software projects, have different channels of communications, some use forums, some use newsgroups, some use irc, some use slack, some rely on stackoverflow, some have an active wiki But each project usually have one channel that is really the go to place to get help I strongly believe that a better forum, that allow users some personalization and flexibility, will help grow the community, and growing the community is a good objective Every now and then someone new to D comes and ask, why arent we using better forum software. And the replies they get are usually of the type, that this works for the current users and its not worth the effort to switch to something else Many of those new comers who ask about the forum software .. they never stick, they dont complain, or question, or try to change for the better, they simply leave You can not really measure how much the D community might have lost, by resisting the repeat demand of using a better forum ... and its not like D have other channels
Re: Engine of forum
On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 08:39:38 UTC, Andrey wrote: On Sunday, 19 August 2018 at 11:11:56 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: This is a news group not a forum. The web interface is driven by DFeed and is written in D. It has been designed to be very fast (quite a notable feature). I see this address: https://forum.dlang.org. It is forum. Ok, even if it isn't a forum, will dlang community have someday the real forum? Are there any movements in this direction? What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum? Inability to edit messages.
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 01:09:29 UTC, MattCoder wrote: On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 00:54:17 UTC, jurr wrote: ...If you just want to make a comment on a topic without replying to any specific person... I don't get because I think most of the time when you post something, you do by replying to someone anyway, you don't say things out of blue, you need a context. For me most of the the things brought up here in this topic are not a problem at all. This is one of best "forum-like" that I use, it is direct to the point, no fancy things to distract and thankfully no delete/change messages allowed. Matt. See the third reply and also my first point of that post :).
Re: Engine of forum
On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 00:54:17 UTC, jurr wrote: ...If you just want to make a comment on a topic without replying to any specific person... I don't get because I think most of the time when you post something, you do by replying to someone anyway, you don't say things out of blue, you need a context. For me most of the the things brought up here in this topic are not a problem at all. This is one of best "forum-like" that I use, it is direct to the point, no fancy things to distract and thankfully no delete/change messages allowed. Matt.
Re: Engine of forum
delete: If you just want to make a comment on a topic without replying to any specific person Didn't mean to post this as I don't think any forum really has that unless you just reply to the first post.
Re: Engine of forum
On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 10:55:54 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: On 20/08/2018 10:38 PM, Andrey wrote: On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: user profiles, Why do you need that? All the information you need is embedded right into the messages themselves (its just emails after all, that yes you can download!). View post history, edit posts (don't know how many times I misclick something and a half completed post gets posted which just makes it difficult to read and follow), be able to login I use a different made-up email on every device I post from cause I can't remember the last made-up email I used. formatting of messages (we are programmers - we need format), My install of Thunderbird has markdown extensions, so I have formatting. Should need an extension for this. Hell even reddit supports code formatting and that's not even a programming centric site. when reply you don't need to quote... Plenty of forum users are required to quote. You lose track of what you're replying to otherwise because they are not a tree, its a list of replies only (which is very very bad and which N.G. does a lot better). If you just want to make a comment on a topic without replying to any specific person It's a strange question, really. As though no one was on the normal forums and do not know how they are convenient. I have used both. N.G. are more convenient once you get use to them as a technically inclined person. Especially with DFeed, most have horrible interfaces. Pointing to DFeed as a solution sort of illustrates the issue. Almost ironic considering how you use DFeed through a web browser, but you just host the server on your own machine.
Re: Engine of forum
Should not need an extension for this *
Re: Engine of forum
On 20/08/2018 10:38 PM, Andrey wrote: On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum? Normal view, DFeed supports multiple views, is there some special one you wish to request? user profiles, Why do you need that? All the information you need is embedded right into the messages themselves (its just emails after all, that yes you can download!). formatting of messages (we are programmers - we need format), My install of Thunderbird has markdown extensions, so I have formatting. when reply you don't need to quote... Plenty of forum users are required to quote. You lose track of what you're replying to otherwise because they are not a tree, its a list of replies only (which is very very bad and which N.G. does a lot better). It's a strange question, really. As though no one was on the normal forums and do not know how they are convenient. I have used both. N.G. are more convenient once you get use to them as a technically inclined person. Especially with DFeed, most have horrible interfaces.
Re: Engine of forum
On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:52:01 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote: What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum? Normal view, user profiles, formatting of messages (we are programmers - we need format), when reply you don't need to quote... It's a strange question, really. As though no one was on the normal forums and do not know how they are convenient.
Re: Engine of forum
On Monday, 20 August 2018 at 08:39:38 UTC, Andrey wrote: On Sunday, 19 August 2018 at 11:11:56 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: This is a news group not a forum. The web interface is driven by DFeed and is written in D. It has been designed to be very fast (quite a notable feature). I see this address: https://forum.dlang.org. It is forum. Ok, even if it isn't a forum, will dlang community have someday the real forum? Are there any movements in this direction? What are the specific problems solved or opportunities realised by moving to a real forum?
Re: Engine of forum
On Sunday, 19 August 2018 at 11:11:56 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: This is a news group not a forum. The web interface is driven by DFeed and is written in D. It has been designed to be very fast (quite a notable feature). I see this address: https://forum.dlang.org. It is forum. Ok, even if it isn't a forum, will dlang community have someday the real forum? Are there any movements in this direction?
Re: Engine of forum
On Sunday, 19 August 2018 at 11:11:56 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote: It has been designed to be very fast (quite a notable feature). That's probably why it's down all the time :P.
Re: Engine of forum
On 19/08/2018 11:08 PM, Andrey wrote: Hello, Sorry if I write in wrong section but I didn't find proper. Will this forum move someday to normal forum engine like Invision Power Board, phpBB... with good view of messages, formatting, user profiles..? Or there are some reasons not to move or problems with it? This is a news group not a forum. The web interface is driven by DFeed and is written in D. It has been designed to be very fast (quite a notable feature).
Engine of forum
Hello, Sorry if I write in wrong section but I didn't find proper. Will this forum move someday to normal forum engine like Invision Power Board, phpBB... with good view of messages, formatting, user profiles..? Or there are some reasons not to move or problems with it?
